Predictable, cluttered CGI spectacular

Rating: 7/10 (10 April 2018)

Monsters ("kaiju") are rising from the ocean floor and mankind's only hope are giant fighting robots ("jaegers"). Formulaic from beginning to end "Pacific Rim" is a tour-de-force visual extravaganza backgrounding a predictable, cliché'd story. Much of the imagery moves so quickly that it is difficult to tell what is happening (other than yet another big fight is underway). The "kaiju" were sufficiently similar looking and hard to scale that you had to be constantly told that the next one was bigger and badder (and they all looked like they had recently gargled with glowstick liquid). The big mechas were more interesting, with imagery reflecting the pop-culture that popularised the term 'kaiju' (I had 'Voltron' flashbacks), but the constant glare made them difficult to appreciate. The film contains lots of filler (training fights, a side trip to find a kaiju brain, etc) buttressing a minimal story and the script is mostly tough guy posturing, especially at the end, when every character seems to heroically say 'goodbye' several times. As is not uncommon in the genre, the story seemed to be written around the imagery rather than vice-versa, but generally, the state-of-the-art CGI was sufficiently impressive to keep me watching (and rewatching).